Phil Plait

Crash Course is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.

This episode was written by me, Phil Plait.

The script was edited by Blake DePastino, and our consultant is Dr. Michelle Thaller.

It was co-directed by Nicholas Jenkins and Michael Aranda, and the graphics team is Thought Cafe.

See visible.com for plan features and network management details.

Hey, Phil Plait here! Welcome to Episode 2 of Crash Course Astronomy, Naked Eye Observations.

Despite the salacious title, nudity is not required.

In fact, given that a lot of astronomical observations are done at night, you may want to bundle up.

You can see different stars depending on where you are on Earth, and if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, Polaris will always point you toward North.

Crash Course is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.

This episode was written by me, Phil Plait.

The script was edited by Blake DePastino, and our consultant is Dr. Michelle Thaller.

And the bottom line is that you look at these images, there have been some MRO images, the scientific material is all they've got.

Guys like Dr. Phil, Phil Plait, who is the biggest douche on the planet as far as I'm concerned, all they have for an argument is that, oh, it's not convex, it's concave.

It's an optical illusion.

You're not really seeing these tubes.

It's well beyond our, our capabilities.

But, um, at that time, twenty twelve, you know, uh, there was an article, um, at least this was on Forbes, from Alex Knapp with Fal- with Phil Plait, and they, they took this idea to task, arguing that, look, from an energy standpoint alone, just not practical.

You'd have to put out, put so much energy into the destruction of mercury.

Uh, you just-- you wouldn't be able to, to, to, to make back your money on this.

Second question is, how many of you no longer believe in those things and you became a skeptic because somebody got in your face screaming and called you an idiot? [drum music]

That is the voice of astronomer and science communicator Phil Plait, who is our guest.

In this episode, we're gonna talk about his new book, Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe.

And I want you to know that that's what this episode's mostly about, but first, I would like to go on a tangent to tell you a little bit more about that audio, where it came from.

Eventually, helped by James Randi and magicians like him, a community formed around scientific skepticism and critical thinking.

In two thousand and three, thousands of people of that movement began gathering at yearly conferences called The Amazing Meeting, named after The Amazing Randi.

And our guest in this episode, Phil Plait, from the very beginning, was one of the most prominent and active voices in that movement.

He's a PhD-level astronomer who worked with NASA on the Hubble Telescope, and he blogged about anti-science and misinformation and motivated reasoning and intellectual humility, all under the title The Bad Astronomer.

And just one last reminder that you're going to be at Dragon Con at the end of August, so if anyone's gonna be there, uh, I know you're gonna be doing a live episode of Astronomy Cast.

Phil Plait's gonna be there and a lot of other people.

There's gonna be some really great, uh, presentations and podca- at the, at the podcasting section, so-

Yes